Thursday, October 25, 2018

We Did the Huck-A-Buck!


The Huck-A-Buck Chronicles:
MikeBo’s Blog for Thursday 25 October 2018
Clear 50°F/ 10°C in Riverhead, NY
Cloudy 70°F/21°C in Cedar Park, TX
Dzień dobry, Panie i panowie!
(Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen!)

Any youngster who ever went to school at Aquebogue Elementary knows from HUCK-A-BUCK!  But, most of the folks who read my blogs never went to Aquebogue Elementary School. First, it’s 
pronounced AQUA-BOGG. It’s a native American word. HUCK-A-BUCK in plain ol’ eastern Long Island
Michael, Dana, Laura, MikeBo
English.


I attended Aquebogue Elementary for one year before my parents moved into town and I finished growing up in Riverhead, New York. During that year, 1946, I made some life-long friendships: Tom Medsger, Ginny Kratoville, “Bubbie” Brown, Susan Downs and Linda Tyte among them. When my folks bought our house on east Main Street and moved into Riverhead, I didn’t see my first grade friends until we went to high school. My brother Packy and I attended  Roanoke Avenue Elementary School, then Riverhead Junior High and then  Riverhead High School, where I graduated in 1958 at age 17. My kid brother graduated in 1963.

Good ol’ Huck-a-Buck didn’t have kindergarten, so I managed to skip the preliminaries, which meant that, at age 77, I was hobbling off to the 60th anniversary reunion of the Riverhead High School  Class of 1958. There were about sixty-five of us – surviving classmates along with our spouses and guests. The graduates followed different paths after the strains of Pomp and Circumstance faded away. Some of my classmates stayed put after graduation, living their lives in the old home town. Others left for a while – going away to college or serving their country in distance places like Vietnam. I fell into the last category. After staying around for a couple of years, I headed out and didn’t set foot in my home town until 2003. This reunion was very special. My son Michael and my daughter Dana came along with me. So did Michael’s wife, Laura. Dana and I came from Texas. Michael and Laura traveled from Rome. For me, it was a sentimental journey of the highest order.

My parents, Charles and Mary “Skip” Botula first came to Riverhead in 1940. Hailing from the western Pennsylvania coal country, they had both come to New York City where they married in
Charles and Mary Botula - 1937
1937.  My mom was a registered nurse and dad was a loan officer for the Personal Finance Company. He often joked that his competition for the small, personal loans the company specialized in was the Mafia and La Cosa Nostra’s notorious loan sharks. His promotion to branch manager brought the couple to Riverhead in 1940. I joined them in January 1941. Since Riverhead would not have its own hospital for another ten  years, I was born in Manhattan. Pearl Harbor was attacked in December, and dad got his commission in the US Navy in 1943. While he was off to war, my mom took me and returned to upstate New York to spend 1944 and 1945 near her parents. By December 1945, when my dad returned from the Pacific War, my kid brother, Charles Botula III, aka Packy¸ had joined us and Skip and Charlie returned to Riverhead, where we lived happily ever after until 1961 when my mom died of cancer. Shattered by the loss of his Skipper, my father died in 1965.

Packy and I both went through the Riverhead school system, although my younger brother missed out on Aquebogue School. Also, he went to kindergarten, unlike his big brother. After
Lt. "Packy" Botula 1969
graduating from R.H.S. (the Pulaski Street school, not the new one), I embarked on the career in broadcasting that I had begun at WRIV while still a sophomore, and my kid brother went off to SUNY Buffalo and a career in the US Air Force. Now, we’re both retired. Packy lives in Illinois near St. Louis with his wife Susan, and I live near Austin, Texas, not too far from my daughter Dana and my five grandchildren. Son Mike lives in Rome, Italy with his wife Laura.

I met and married Michael and Dana’s mother, Donna, in Phoenix before we moved on to California to start our family. Our children grew up in California and never set foot in their father’s home town in New York together until I brought them to Riverhead for this reunion.

The RHS Class of 1958 numbered about 117 people when we graduated on that balmy June night. It was the last of the pre-WW 2 classes to graduate from the building on Pulaski Street. Most
Graduation Night - June 23, 1958
of the graduates had grown up in and around Riverhead – Flanders, Jamesport, Wading River, Calverton, Manorville, Baiting Hollow, Mattituck, Laurel and of course, Aquebogue. Along the way, we were joined by young people who had moved from other cities and states, and even other countries. We welcomed new classmates who didn’t even speak English when they started school. They were from families who had sought new lives in the USA after their own homes in Europe had been devastated by the war.  Since my hometown already had a large population of Poles who had come to the US after World War I, many of the newcomers also came from Poland. The newcomers became part of what would be The Class of ’58, part of the Riverhead family!  For most of us, the bonds of friendship would last a lifetime. That’s what my son and daughter came to understand on their first visit together to their father’s home town. By the time we headed back to our respective homes on Sunday, Mike and Laura and Dana felt right at home.

The reunion followed our time-honored format: A reception  on Friday evening, sit-down dinner on Saturday night, and Sunday brunch to cap it off. The reception this year was at the Outerbanks Restaurant at Indian Island County Park. We had the Saturday dinner at our class favorite, Riverhead Polish Hall on Marcy Avenue. Diane Tucci  took our latest family portrait before we sat down to the Polish Hall’s famous home cooking. Finally, Sunday brunch took place  at the venerable Birchwood Restaurant, also in Polish Town, which we old-timers remember as Regula’s Corner.

In between reunion events, I took the kids on a tour of the town. We drove out to Aquebogue, past the elementary school where I attended first grade. Past the old Downs’ General Store and US
Dana, Mike and Michael Botula
Post Office building to the Modern Snack Bar. After lunch we drove up to Iron Pier Beach to gaze across Long Island Sound at Connecticut. Finally we drove back through Jamesport and back to town along Peconic Bay Boulevard.  Friday, after a stop at the Riverhead Flower Shop, we headed up to the Roanoke Avenue Cemetery where Mary and Charles Botula are buried. Michael and Dana never knew their grandparents. They had died before the kids were born. We placed the two bouquets we had brought with us, and Dana scraped the moss that had started to form on her grandparents’ headstones.

Saturday morning we drove out to Montauk Point and its historic lighthouse, built in 1796. Dana commented on the age of the lighthouse, almost 300 years. That brought a laugh from Laura, who hails from Rome, which is nearly 3,000 years old! While I waited below, Michael, Laura and Dana joined the other tourists and climbed to the top of the light house. Then we drove back to Riverhead and joined the others at the reunion.

Sunday morning, Dana and I had coffee with Michael and Laura before they headed to Newark Airport and their flight back to Rome. Dana and I went on to brunch, and then it was back to Islip for our flight back to Austin. Our sentimental journey to dad’s hometown was over.
Ciao!
MikeBo


[Mike Botula, the author of LST 920: Charlie Botula’s Long, Slow Target! is a retired broadcast journalist, government spokesperson and media consultant.   Mike’s book is available from Amazon or Barnes and Noble Books. You can read more about Mike Botula at www.mikebotula.com]




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